$54,134 is a big amount to lose in a single month, and it doesn't make life any easier when it comes immediately after another $60,000-down month.

Most of the damage is done by the untimely Microsoft bid for Yahoo! The bid, which was made public in the first day of February, immediately pulled MSFT back to the 20s, almost halved the value of my employee stock option account.

On my self-managed portfolio side, my heavy exposure to financial stocks penalized my performance -- it was a complete reversal of fortune compared to January, when these bank stocks lift the

TRANSACTIONS

Flying to safety is probably the best summary of my several trades for the month. I downsized my equity holdings by closing my positions in FSTMX and KBE.

With the reopening of Dodge & Cox's domestic equity stock, I started an initial position on DODGX before the famous fund gets closed again.